By Kent Fillinger
Bedford Christian Church began in 1966 with 12 couples and has evolved into a church-planting church. In 1994, Bedford relocated and changed its name to reflect its new location. The church adopted the name of the adjoining subdivision and became Highland Meadows Christian Church.
The church grew from 500 to a peak attendance of 1,500 in 2000. By the time current senior minister Drew Sherman arrived in 2002, however, attendance had been declining slightly for two years.
Sherman realized many people in the church were hurting, so he gradually embarked on casting the vision for loving people and thinking more outward than inward. The church experienced slow growth for the next several years.
In a few years the church was averaging 1,700 people, but was located on a 6.5-acre campus with only 400 parking spaces and a 900-seat worship center. Church leaders were faced with a decision: what could they do in order to continue growing?
In 2007, they decided to add an additional location and change to a multisite ministry model. In 2008, the church merged with/adopted a church as its third site, and later that year added a fourth location.
Finding Their Way
The most significant decision that year was to again change the name of the church. This time, the desire wasn”t to convey where the church was located, but instead what it wanted to become. The church and its four campuses become known as Compass Christian Church.
Sherman describes a compass as “a way-finding piece,” and says the church has used the compass image as an effective tool to express and reinforce its mission and values. Compass Christian defined its mission as “navigating people to God.”
The four core values of the church coincide with the four points on a compass. The “N” is for Navigate, “W” is for Worship, “E” is for Engage, and “S” is for Serve. Compass has reversed the typical order and told its members to serve in their home and with their family first, in the community second, and in the church last.
The church”s goal is to get each person to know and to fully engage in all four core values. Sherman constantly asks people what they are doing to navigate people to God, and this clear mission has served as an easy springboard for people to invite their friends.
Multisite Wins
The multisite ministry model has created more wins than losses for Compass. Sherman acknowledges it is difficult to duplicate the dynamic environment of the larger campus at the additional sites, and so Compass has worked to create a consistent look and feel to the worship in each location, to provide the same weekly message delivered by a live teaching pastor, and to give the smaller sites the freedom to incorporate unique elements to contextualize their ministry. (Examples: a Saturday night Hindi-speaking service at one location and a Saturday night Hispanic service at another. One location serves a meal once a quarter within their worship service.)
Sherman said the multisite locations–in Colleyville, Irving, Frisco, and and Roanoke, Texas–have definitely provided Compass with an opportunity they would not have otherwise had to navigate people to God. The multisite model has created a resource for leadership development as new and potential leaders have more opportunities to serve and grow. And the multisite effort has helped with staff retention; two of Compass”s current teaching pastors previously served on the church”s youth ministry staff.
The new mission, core values, and name have been consistently communicated, which has helped drive growth up 46 percent over the last two years.
Compass Christian recently purchased a five-acre site across the street from its original campus. It plans to renovate an existing building into a 36,000-square-foot community center to reinforce the church”s value of serving the needs of the community.
To assist in the renovation of this new facility, and to provide upgrades at one of its campuses, Compass soon will launch a two-year capital campaign to raise $7 million.
Kent Fillinger is president of 3:STRANDS Consulting (www.3strandsconsulting.com).
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